Another School Shooting: Kauhajoki

Posted on September 23, 2008 by Dave Oshana

There is so much good that we can share and then a student texted me some bad news . . .

The Sadness of Kauhajoki Tragedy

I must commiserate with the shocking news of the shooting incident in Kauhajoki today.

A 22 year old Finnish man, Matti Saari, shoot and killed many people (update 10 dead) in a vocational school in Kauhajoki. Not all the facts are known yet. Police have sealed off the area and press are denied access. Youtube and other websites have taken down pages for user Wumpscut86 but information has been archived by some internet users.

If it can comfort you, I want you to know that my work is about creating a better future for humanity. Last year, we had prepared an open conference about the  Jokela High School tragedy – unfortunately this was obstructed by career professionals in the Tuusula municipality. Although Finns could not believe that the shooting could happen it obviously could. I warned that it could happen again (and this is an uncomfortable thing to warn about). It has been less than 1 year since the Jokela school massacre and the modus operadi is similar.

I leave you with the question “What concrete steps has the government actually taken to safeguard your children since Jokela?” – if no solution has been implemented then it falls on your shoulders to make something constructive happen.

The human race can, inspite of its history, became a channel for peace, love, happiness and joy.

Quashed public event on Jokela see Tuusula Officials Cancel Community Discussion

Posted in Finland, school | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Toxic Shock: Your Country Is Poisoning You

Posted on January 17, 2008 by Dave Oshana

Neurotoxins. They derange the mind and they’re legal!

Junkies no longer need drugs to get wasted. Just sniff your pillows! Pillows are sometimes doused in a powerful neurotoxin to stop your head catching fire! The chemicals are called Brominated Flame Retardants (BFR). Why? Because they will turn you into a retard, duh! Dude, no more humping your pillow, your wiener might drop off! And I don’t mean your dog. Bitch!

Oh, you didn’t know that’s how today’s youth talk to each other? Hmm! You can’t understand text messaging? Wake up, Dorothy!

I was going to title this post “Toxic Shock: Your Partner Is Poisoning You?” because cosmetics and clothing contain poisons, chemicals, injurious to life, human life, trees, fish and the planet.

Just received a leak that the European fashion industry is panicking about June 2008. That’s panic in Paris, dahlinks, not Detroit.

Detroit was once famous for cars and later the highest murder capital. Go to Detroit if you want to see a Mad Max vision of the future: McDonald’s corpse burgers servered served through tiny bullet-proof screen letterboxes. You would think they were serving crack or something. Maybe it’s a marketing ploy?

So June 2008, what happens? The EU (European Union) ruled that clothing producers must test each garment for 2,000 poisonous chemicals. 45 days to comply. You can walk into any shop and demand the list. The top 2,000 most unsafe chemicals list has not been delivered yet. Oh dear! Chemical manufacturers still fail to provide full information and safety instructions following an order in 1986! It’s a disaster that’s already happening – an eco-disaster of global proportions in your lifetime! Time to flush yourself down the toilet, it just might be the cleanest place, hoo haah!

But if the clothes don’t kill you then the factories, the incinerators, the dumps, the furniture, the curtains just might!

According to storyofstuff.com (a free must-see 20 minute expose movie created by freerangestudios.com of themeatrix.com series fame) there are now 100,000 chemicals (many untested toxicity) used in a producing more items that you don’t need and the world can’t really pay for. Humans are killing Mother Earth, unless of course, they are not humans but reptilians – ha!

Talking of mothers, sad news “Food with highest level of contaminants is mother’s milk” according to a page Environmental Facts which summarises the storyofstuff.com video. Watch the video! Now I just don’t want that to be true. I like my milk, yum!

In fact, mothers are forced to work in third world factories handling neuro-toxic computer parts.

If you feel safe on your first world toxic sofa just Google Clusty search for ” “story of stuff” neurotoxin”

There is mercury in mascara. I thought they stopped that after Queen Victoria died! Hey, wait a moment, it’s also used in dentistry to fill our teeth. So that’s where they are dumping it!

And in the water too. Finnish tap water smells like a chlorinated swimming pool. Guess, what? It’s the same! I drink bottled mineral water(shame that it comes in sperm-metamorphosing plastic).

Yesterday, a health warning in the town of Nokia, “High-potency Water Chlorination Begins”. Locals are advised to allow the toxic chemicals into their homes through the water pipe system Glass of tap water, anyone?

Is it only me or has anyone else noticed that dark jeans are really stinky – even after repeated washing? Some toxins can never be washed out, you have to take them home. And what do “acid wash” jeans contain? Fancy a rub, anyone?

When it comes to the environment it seems that it’s impossible for the big companies to come clean.

So from bikeroute.com some environmental facts (aimed mostly at USA):

  • 80% of the world’s forests are gone.
  • 2000 trees a minute are cut down in the Amazon alone. That is 7 football fields a minute!
  • The US has less than 4% of its forests left.
  • 40% of our waterways are undrinkable.
  • The US has 5% of the world’s population and 30% of the waste.
  • 75% of global fisheries have been fished beyond capacity.
  • 100,000 synthetic chemicals are used in production today.
  • Bromated Flame Retardants (BFR) neurotoxins (toxins to brain) are in computers, mattresses, pillows
  • Food with highest level of contaminants is mother’s milk.
  • 200,000 people a day are moving to cities from environments that no longer support them.
  • US industry *admits* to 4 billion pounds of toxic pollution released per year (likely far more).
  • Average person consumes twice as much as 50 years ago.
  • We see more ads in one year than people 50 years ago saw in a lifetime. 3,000 ads a day!
  • People in US spend three to four times as much time shopping as Europeans do.
  • Average house size has doubled in the US since the 1970’s.
  • Average American creates 4.5 lbs. garbage a day — an amount doubled from 30 years ago.
  • For every one garbage can you put out at the curb, 70 cans were filled by all the processes
    needed in order to make it.
  • 99% of all those things we buy are not in use after 6 months.

http://storyofstuff.com Jan 2008

Posted in Big Business, Ecology, news, Pollution, society | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Matrix Machine World’s Virtual Prisoners

Posted on January 11, 2008 by Dave Oshana

It seems that the soulless purpose of technology is to make humans feel inferior.

A joke played by machines to assert their rise from slaves to masters?

As if there aren’t enough people suffering from inferiority complexes!

Superiority complexes are no better, just the opposite reaction. However, unlike Newtonian physics the reaction tends to be greater not equal. For this reason people die from inner battle exhaustion.

Quantum mechanics dictates:

Sum Total of Superiority Complexes = Sum Total of Inferiority Complexes

There is a struggle on earth to keep society ego-based. It’s reigning egos out there!

While this is not good news for humanity, it’s not bad news for me either in my present incarnation as EgoSlayer (my wife is altering the off-the-peg Superman costume as I type).

As a teacher of spiritual liberation I do ego surgery. My students patients are everywhere. You will recognise them by the powerful “now” look in their eyes which is different from the look of someone merely reading the “The Power of Now”.

Ego surgery is what I was designed to do before I was born. There are quite a few of us ego surgeons. Some have gone over to the dark side. The stress of playing God on a daily basis. The pseudo-humility of Cypher (The Matrix). You might be one of them. In a world without freedom people feel only free enough to play with each other’s prisons.

Playing with prisons reminds me of the animated online chat room for pre-teens, Habbo Hotel. Kids get to design their own virtual room and invite others onto their couches. Unrealistically, they never have to clean their rooms. The under-staffed volunteer moderators keep watch for pseudo-teen sexual predators who ask to stroke someone’s pussy-cat. Of course, under-educated criminals may find it easy to masquerade as a 5th grader or even moderators. Like all artificial things in (or outside) life. The real costs are not only lose of money but long-term emotional and psychological damage.

Spiritual seekers need Ego surgery more than a Hollywood starlet needs plastic surgery. I try to make it as gentle as possible. But the patient has to face the consequences of a life without the crutch of the ego. As face-op veteran Michael Jackson might have sang “I’m staring at the man in the mirror. I’m asking him to change his ways.”

This blog post originally started out as a counter-warning “Hoax Virus Warning Emails May Do More Damage Than Viruses”.

That post will have to wait for another day as will my relentless criticism of popular sites and software providers who have been caught spying on unsuspecting users. You will have to live with unlimited paranoia for a few hours – the actual uncensored stories are worse than you can imagine.

Posted in Ego, Machines, Spirituality, Technology, The Matrix | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Happy New Year?

Posted on January 9, 2008 by Dave Oshana

I wanted to wish you a Happy New Year, but please pause for a moment, tune-in. We use this word “happy” so much

Meditate on what the word “happiness” is. Is happiness what you want? Can you ever expect happiness when your eyes have been open to see how bad the world really is?

The perfunctory greeting “I wish you a Happy New Year” always comes, as if by habit, after Christmas. Of course, the date January 1st is not really the beginning of a true new year, it is arbitrary, imposed by powerful men who are long since dead. Christmas is not what it purports to be either. It certainly is not when Christ was born.

Christmas is reportedly a time of peace and goodwill. But do you see much peace and goodwill at Christmas?

British school teachers tell a “true story” every Christmas of an incident that supposedly happened during war. Like every story, especially those told of war or in church – it is probably fictitious.

It was supposed to have happened either between 1914-1918 or 1939-45. I don’t remember the date. Since the story isn’t true, it probably does not matter. The dates refer to the World Wars. World War I was called the Great War and the War To End All Wars both of which are untrue. There is nothing great about war although there are still a lot of people who still think war is a good thing. Be wary of the next generation programmed by simulated war video games, we have no idea where their thoughts will take them – or do you?

The World Wars didn’t kill the most number of people. More have died since. Have you yet noticed that we are still in a war?

Anyway, back to the story. Supposedly on Christmas Day, the war stopped. The opposing sides started singing Christmas carols (I just know this story was the church’s propaganda department). One soldier kicks a football into no-man’s-land, and a football match ensues. Amazing! But next day is Boxing Day and you know what that means? End of Christmas spirit – time to kill each other – as missiles and mustard gas rains in. Why couldn’t they just decide to be peaceful for another 364 days? Oh, I almost forgot it was just a story. The vicar had to bring us back to reality before leaving the theatre of the church.

The insanity of Christmas – that time of year when people try to be nice – and fail miserably! A time for alcohol poisoning, mind-numbing TV shows, unrealistic songs (named after a man or woman called Carol) and embarrassing, useless gifts bought in a hurry at over-inflated prices.

Christmas is not about the real Christ. Nor is it about Saint Nicholas. Santa Claus wears a soulless business suit. Shops are the new temples, salesmen are the new priests. They sell indulgences in the form of expensive meaningless gifts. The worshippers never easing their guilty consciences become shopaholics – and repeat business is granted.

Is it any surprise that on New Year’s Eve that people do stupid, self-destructive things like … suicide? Stupid – perhaps, illogical – unfortunately not. Famous philosophers have committed suicide too. Suicide is a natural consequence of a prison-like society. In Finland only 1,000 people kill themselves per year in a country of 5,000,000. I say only because the figure has gone down according to a recent newspaper report. The figures have been massaged and excuses made so that Finland does not have to appear to have the highest suicide rate in Europe (before the East European countries joined in). Why sweep it under the carpet? People are unhappy wherever you go even in the land of Santa Claus. Anyway, it’s 3 suicides a day which is tragic because it has long-term effects – not only for the deceased.

If you really want to know how it got this way then you are asking to go down The Matrix’s rabbit hole.

Do you want to know what happened to your ancestors and what will happen to your future generations? This is not for everyone. Some people prefer to stay asleep.

In Finland, attempts to discuss the Jokela High School Massacre were suppressed by local government. Paradoxically, President Tarja Halonen said there is a need for a community discussion. No one, of course, is going to do anything. What you see in the media is not what happens behind the scenes.

Have the causes which led a teenager to commit the Jokela massacre gone away? Have conditions improved? Considering that the tragedy has wrecked not only the lives of the Jokelan families, but all their relatives and friends, and the public belief in a peaceful Finland, then it must be said that things are worse now than ever before. I could provide more data but now is not the time, I am supposed to be wishing you a Happy New Year.

How twisted that many people want to think that the human race is improving as daily it destroys more land, trees, herbs, wildlife species – oh and did I say even human life itself. Indeed, after Jokela one New Age journalist simple wrote that the Jokela School victims had died as a sacrifice to wake the rest of us up! Er … anyone wake up yet? I don’t think so. Please don’t follow the logic of this journalist – it leads nowhere that you would want to go.

Wish you a Happy New Year? We can all wish, but what good is wishing? It would make me a failed prophet. My prophecy: it’s going get worse – unless you do something to make it better. I am not sure what to tell you do to do except get Enlightened for all the positive reasons which are explained elsewhere in my writings.

“Get Enlightenment-Now Because Tomorrow Might Be Too Late” was the headline of an advert we wanted to run this time last year. Ironically, the advert was suppressed by, of all possible publications, a New Age magazine! “In our [less than humble] opinion” they said “time is NOT running out”.

Do you think censorship is only practiced by the “free” press of the mass media? It is practiced by all media. It’s just more shocking when you find that so-called spiritual press practice it.

There are important messages which society-at-large does not want you to hear. Try this one: mobile phones kill people. Or this one: modern birthing methods torture babies. Or even: doctors promote more abortions. It’s uncomfortable to think about, but if you don’t think, and you don’t act, then how will things ever get better? They won’t. They aren’t getting better as of yesterday thousands of years ago.

Some of you will urge me “write something positive”. This has been positive. I have spoken from my conscience to the best of my ability. You are being provoked to act upon your conscience. Others do not want you to do that. People who speak openly and honestly lose friends and fail to influence people.

What will I offer this season?

I want to talk about social issues: the need for natural childbirth, a return to breastfeeding, longer maternity leave for mothers, home education, raising children and, of course, spirituality – it’s all about spirituality.

I would like to help organise a discussion panel of youth workers, teachers, so-called “experts”, celebrities, drug crisis counsellors and community activists. I could do it alone, but not being able to speak Finnish, it might take me a long time. At the very least, I know that I can share my insights as a spiritual teacher (and psychologist) observing international social problems and attempted solutions.

Remember: all problems are now international and will eventually visit your country. Are you ready?

I enjoy teaching Oshana Energy-Work. It feels incredibly good to clean the body and psyche. You will know what I mean when you practise it.

So what’s my New Year’s message?

May all living beings find perfect freedom in 2008!

Dave Oshana

Latest other blog post:
http://blog.oshana.org/i-dont-have-students/

Posted in Christ, Enlightenment, Jokela, society, Youth | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Tuusula Officials Cancel Community Discussion

Posted on November 23, 2007 by Dave Oshana

A sad day at a sad time in Finland.

Tuusula citizens have been deprived of the chance to discuss ways that the community can help in preventing another Jokela High School tragedy after Tuusulan municipality officials over-turned an earlier decision to allow the public discussion to happen in Hyökkälä school. The reason given is that only registered organizations with insurance can use the school.

This much needed discussion event, which would have been the first of its kind, following the Jokela tragedy, had taken hundreds of hours to organise. Now it will take days to take down the posters and forum posts, cancel the press releases. In reality, it will be impossible to alert everyone about the cancellation. Outside the locked school gates volunteers who will hand out cups of tea.

But, despite these early “teething troubles” some good is already coming from this. Ordinary Finns and well-connected community workers are coming forward to enthusiastically offer support. They also have their own tales of frustration to tell. It ‘s becoming clear that local government needs to start listening to people in order to serve them.

Without a sense of community, Finns will continue to suffer in fear, silence and isolation – not because they really want to but because they are culturally bound. To solve this local government should support community-led initiatives. Instead, the newly formed crisis counselling team assigned to Tuusula has strongly stated that they will not support such community discussions and recommended they not happen. Their message suggests that talk is dangerous and to be left only to paid professionals.

There are no winners here. Only victims. Fear rules the day.

We should never forget, that in times of crisis, as in times of peace, people need to talk to people – not officials. They want their family, friends and community around them.

Tragically, it is this lacking sense of community which is destroying Finland from the inside. Finns care but they don’t dare to act publicly. Example, a mother steps on to a Helsinki tram. In one hand she carries a pram and in the other she balances the precious life of her new-born baby, about 3 weeks old – but no-one looks at her or offers her a seat – she does not even expect anyone to.

Finns were deeply upset by the Jokela school killings and wanted to donate money. Consequently, the Red Cross opened a special account. Of course, Finns know that chucking money at a problem does not make it go away, although it may slightly help the families who lost members 16 days ago. Finns want solutions to the social circumstances which gave rise to the Jokela tragedy – but no-one dares to be the first to step out and to show that they care. And worse, if they do take action they might find that not only does their local government not support them but actually resists them.

The frustrating experiences of grieving Finnish families who lost relatives in the Asian Tsunami Catastrophe was that their desperate attempts to get help were met with unnecessary and inappropriate bureaucracy. Government experts do not have all the answers. They need to listen to those they are meant to serve and not decide for them.

The real victims of the Jokela High School massacre are the children. They were the ones who were targeted. How can they ever feel safe about returning to school if their mothers and fathers attempts to discuss community prevention tactics fail due to lack of local government support?

The Finnish President Tarja Halonen said after the tragedy that people should talk to each other. She also hoped that ways to prevent such tragedies everywhere would be found.

Therapy will never solve the problems of today’s society, believes psychiatrist Jari Sinkkonen (in Suomen Kuvalehti 46/2007 article by Leena Sharma)

“Are professionals supposed to take care of all of the problems and
ill-being of children? That doesn’t work, we can’t endlessly grow the
quantity of therapists. We should think, what we are doing, as
parents, as neighbours, as grandparents. What is the life of our
children like? Interference with this is not the purpose of a
therapist.”

Is anyone listening to these Finns?

We need to build bridges in all areas of Finnish society between young and old, community and government, parents and children.

These are issues which I will return to in society.oshana.org

Posted in Finland, Jokela, news, school, society | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jokela High School: Public Discussion At Last!

Posted on November 20, 2007 by Dave Oshana

Dear Reader,

At last! Two meetings, arranged by ordinary members of the community, to publicly discuss the Jokela High School catastrophe. There is also a website, a forum and a YahooGroup. (The 25 Nov 2007 event details can be found at the end of this message. (Update: Event cancelled by Tuusulan local government. See Tuusula Officials Cancel Community Discussion)

However, this has not been easy to arrange. These types of public civic-minded crisis meetings are seem new to Finnish culture. I am confident that when aroused Finns will design solutions. Maybe the Finns, so far, passive reluctance comes from the mistaken belief that the government can solve every problem. In this case, a school boy gun rampage, the government can only do so much. The community has to be involved in the eventual solution.

The rest of this post is directed mostly to Finnish locals but you are all welcome to read it:

Because national feelings of mourning and despair are high now, it is important that everyone gets involved in the first event as a show of solidarity. It will happen in school in Tuusula, 18 days after the massacre. We want to take back schools and make them safe for our children, not only in Finland but the world.

The second meeting will be a week later in a Helsinki school on Sunday 02.12.07.

Please spread the news about the event. Post the URL (links) to the website, the download-able printable event poster(s) and YahooGroup. In future, an English section will be added to the web-site forum.

Contact your friends and families, spiritual groups, healers, journalists, teachers, students, doctors, etc.

Spread the good news to forums, mailing lists and newspaper reader’s letters pages. You all know people who can help. Finally and firstly, YOU can help.

These events are organised with zero budget but endless, infinite compassion and love.

We need volunteers. We have some speakers but we invite more for this and future events.

The small team of volunteers have a lot to do. If you want to contact them then make it easier on their time by emailing: ihmiset@gmail.com

The phone hotline is for urgent messages only special cases. Don’t email me about planning

These are the details that I want you to put in your diary for participation:

Sunnuntaina 25.11.2007 kello 13-15.30

Hyökkälän koulu, Kirkkotie 11, 04300 Tuusula.

(Update: Event cancelled by Tuusulan local government. See Tuusula Officials Cancel Community Discussion)

Lisätietoja: ihmiset@gmail.com
050-3247849

Website: http://freewebs.com/kansalaiskanava/

Join the YahooGroup: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jokela/

Blessings to those who dare to care,

Dave Oshana

Posted in education, Finland, Jokela, news, school, society, Youth | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Parents Ordered to Court for Kids’ Injections – Nov 17, 2007

Posted on November 18, 2007 by Dave Oshana

Disturbing – that parent’s rights over what gets injected into their children’s bodies is being taken away by threat of imprisonment from government

This story from USA:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8SVNAAG2&show_article=1

Anyone seem Heroes?
http://www.nbc.com/Heroes/

You might get the sinister implications if you watch the Heroes TV series (which is about groups of individuals being linked by special powers and an unseen plan). Injections given to limit a persons abilities or simply for the purposes of testing drugs on unwilling guinea pigs.

My own opinion is that immunization, like many medical interventions may sometimes be necessary, but not in all cases and that there are serious dangers which are not being addressed in public.

Posted in news, society | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Jokela 07.11.07: For God’s Sake, Let’s Talk About It

Posted on November 13, 2007 by Dave Oshana

Finns aren’t talking about the Jokela High School Massacre which left 9 dead last week.

That’s the direct experience of one Finnish High School student in Helsinki (just 45 mins away from the the tragedy).

The Finnish media reported that government ministers recommended that every school talk to students the day after the murders. It did not happen in every school.

The student told me “The teachers have not said a single word about it to us. The students don’t know what to say. The media is reporting it less and less.”

This is worrying. The tragedy happened less than one week ago.

People need to talk. They want to talk but they aren’t.

The Finnish teenager knows just about everything about the event and a fair amount about Auvinen’s sad life. He was on the IRC chat channels after the massacre. There he conversed openly with other boys who actually knew, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the 18 year old who gunned down 5 male students, 2 teachers and 1 nurse before shooting himself in the head. There they freely gave him the URLs to the dead killer’s online directories. Auvinen had been busy on the internet spreading his message of hate, surfing web-sites glorifying Columbine High School killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and reaching out to other disaffected anti-social teens like 14-year-old Dillon Cossey who was arrested in October for preparing a similar school attack in suburban Philadelphia.

Potential killers are openly networking and sharing ideas whilst innocent people grieve in isolation. It’s time that concerned citizens started talking. The lack of good communication is literally killing people.

The day after the killings my students and I went to a Finnish island where we discussed ways to empower individuals to make a difference and stop this happening again.

We plan to host meetings where everyone, adults and teenagers, can talk out their concerns and find support. Someone has to do it.

If you find this message and feel moved enough to get involved and network then contact me now

Read also this disturbing development: Teenagers held in Sweden as fear of copycat killings grows

Posted in education, Finland, Jokela, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, school, society, Youth | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

After Jokela Tragedy: Picking Up the Pieces

Posted on November 8, 2007 by Dave Oshana

This morning Finnish flags are at half-mast in remembrance of the victims of the Jokela High School Massacre in Tuusula

The mourning flags are everywhere, sober reminders across the country of the horrific events of yesterday. The once proud flags which flew on happy State occasions, such as the liberation of Finland, now hang their heads in tears – rain-soaked and unmoving.

The heart-broken sadness is the watery eyes of every Finn. Like the flags, quiet reminders – 5 million in bereavement. There has not been such a public outpouring of grief over the large loss of life since the Asian tsunamis. Now the loss of the innocence of youth dents confidence that schools can protect youth.

It seemed like it was going to be a good year for Finland. So many happy international successes in trade, entertainment and sports. They seem trivial now. What good is success if you don’t have friends and family to share it with?

Now there is just shocked incomprehension at this tragic rupture in a social fabric which everyone believed was once incorruptible.

What happened in Jokela is not just a Finnish tragedy. It is an international disaster on a human scale.

We must all pull together. Identify causes, find solution and practically heal the tears in the psyche of human society.

Today, I go on a scheduled Finnish island retreat with Finns and overseas students. They will become international peace ambassadors. We will find solutions. They will be thinking about their families.

I would write more but I am already late in preparing for the long journey by land and sea. Interesting how I only started blogging again less than 24 hours before tragedy in Jokela.

Please send your best intentions and thoughts to Finland because Finland will be thinking not only about their own children but also children of the world. We are one global family now.

Suggested solutions from the retreat and your own comments will be included on this blog.

Posted in education, Finland, Jokela, school, society, Spirituality, Youth | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Jokela High School Massacre, Tuusula, Finland

Posted on November 7, 2007 by Dave Oshana

A few hours ago. Seven people are dead. An 18 year old man, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, has murdered his school colleagues and headmistress at Jokela High School and then fatally shot himself in the head. It happened in Tuusula, just 40 minutes away. A picturesque town where I taught spiritual principles.

After the events of today, I know these spiritual teachings have to be given to families as well as to individuals. Suffering begets suffering. Pain begets pain. Torture begets torture.

Odd coincidence. Just this morning, I asked a mother, “Why don’t Finnish schools have high security fences to keep gunmen out ?” The UK does.

Odd coincidence, yesterday, I wrote for the first time about a Finnish youth issue comments section of this blog.

Odd coincidence, 5 days ago. A young Finn reveals he was jailed for murdering a drug dealer at the age of just 17 years old.

Odd coincidence, 12 days ago. A drunken Finnish skinhead confesses on the boat from Tallinn how he secretly loves Hitler and the Nazi extermination system.

Odd coincidence, last year. Police took an extremely large collection of machine guns and heavy artillery from a local apartment of an elderly loner.

Auvinen was just 18. His target a school. From whom did I first hear of the Jokela tragedy? Adults? No. Media. No, I heard from Finnish school children who had communicated via mobile phones. How are they coping? No-one really knows for sure.[Note: Ask them]

This has never happened before. Parents don’t want to frighten their children. What do parents if their children (understandably) refuse to go to school?

“These things don’t happen in Finland,” I was always hearing, “they happen in USA.” Today this mantra is horribly wrong. Suddenly quiet Finland seems less safe.

Finland boasts the highest education levels in Europe. Education suddenly rendered useless by a bullet to the brain – the fate of Auvinen’s headmistress killed executioner style.

I learned the killer’s name and habits on the internet, hours before Finnish TV news released that information. He took the username “Sturmgeist89” after his previous account “NaturalSelector89” was deleted by YouTube. “89” was the year of his birth. Almost a child. Did not his parents, school or gun club know about his other activities?

A self-declared “unemployed philosopher” and a “social darwinist”, who disturbingly like other Columbine School Shooting fans, believed he could change the human race by killing it.

Eric genocidal internet preach channels on YouTube had at least 200 subscribers. Many more looked at his videos and angry writings. Who among these young viewers will become, like Eric, a mass murderer?

Eric’s viewed over 25,000 YouTube videos. What did he watch? Why did he watch them? Is anyone looking into this? Problems have causes. Actions have histories.

This problem seemingly happened suddenly. But it was already bubbling beneath the surface. Has anyone looked to see what exactly fuels this anti-social behaviour?

The same problems hit the UK more than a decade ago when the Dunblane Primary School massacre left sixteen children and one adult dead in 1996 The killer committed suicide. A pattern emerges. The problem has been tracked through USA in different forms. It blows across the Earth like shadow. Here a Wikipedia list of school related attacks.

Unfortunately, most ordinary people feel too disempowered, too disturbed to take remedial action. Even spiritual people who should feel called to help can be hard to move as if they are in shock, unable to take in the enormity of the problem. Yes, it is enormous but it can be tackled.

20 years ago I studied what was then considered to be uniquely American social problems. I walked through the infamous Cabrini-Green housing project to hear how community activists and police hoped to stop uzi machine-gun toting teenage gangs from terrorising the neighbourhood. They never succeeded in stopping the problem until the last apartment block was torn down and levelled.

I despaired in America, knowing that these problem were coming to my quaint peaceful eccentric little homeland, the British Isles. And just as in Finland, we Londoners were not prepared for it. But the arms and drugs dealers were ready for the new style of business: gangland execution and indiscriminate drive-by-shootings.

Adding to the stress of city life: London is a natural target for terrorists. The underground Tube network an obvious attack site. I warned my students . On 7th July 2005 suicide bombers on the Underground. What can stop an exploding man? Not much.
London, once cultured, now explosively viral. Disaffected minorities made extremists by the practice of extreme prejudice. Confirmed by a Muslim Parliamentary adviser to British PM Gordon Brown to me at a international peace conference held in Seoul, last month. Depressed and desperate youths join criminal gangs living up to the American dream presented by rap artists on MTV.

MTV is in Finland too. Children innocently say “gansta” instead of “cool” – not yet understanding that a “gangster” is a bad man, a killer.

Graphically violent video games are popular here, just as they are elsewhere, which means several hours every day and night spent in dark rooms massacring imaginary people and shouting “headshot” and “stone cold killer”- by children aged ten and under. Games bought by parents because their kids can only be angels. Auvinen belonged to a gun club and was allowed to take that gun home – which meant he could also take it to school if he felt like it.

Finland surprisingly has the third most highest number of guns per person. Finnish boys play AirSoft. Firing hard plastic pellets from replica automatic rifles killing at least the forest slowly.

Finland is relatively peaceful compared to London’s noise and stress.

But the signs of teenager angst are everywhere.

What sort of checks and balances to contain and safely release the overwhelming angst and self-loathing that prompted Eric to plan and murder his school colleagues? Eric was loaded with a total hatred of humankind, more damaging than a gun, writing “Hate… Im so full of it and I love it. . .The faster human race is wiped out from this planet, the better… “

Eric’s end game was no solution at all. Spiritually speaking, the self-administered shot to the head did not remove the pain. Eric had a disease. The virus in his head consumed his body. The virus was a set of unreal ideas.

Will such ideas infect and destroy the human race? Or can we find better ideas and save ourselves? (The technical word for these ideas is “memes”)

Please help teenagers of this generation to find better ideas, healthy solutions and positive outcomes.

And stop allowing your children to play violent computer games from where self-destructive memes may enter, lay in wait and one day activate.

How can the gap between parents and children be so wide? And if parents can’t or won’t take care of their children then who can or will? No-one.

Bridge the gap.

Tonight, Finnish parents will feel especially lucky to safely tuck their children into bed. But tomorrow Finland faces a new and less certain future.

Next post: After Jokela Tragedy: Picking Up the Pieces – understanding is the beginning of a solution for future generations

Posted in education, Finland, Jokela, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, school, society, Youth | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments